ER visits could be on the upswing

Express-News Editorial Board

October 12, 2017

Photo: ANDREW DICKINSON /NYT

A health care navigator, right, for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland at a health insurance enrollment event in Carroll, Iowa in 2015. With the annual open enrollment under the Affordable Care Act just weeks away, navigators are trying to make do with less after deep cuts by the Trump administration in the counseling program.

A health care navigator, right, for Planned Parenthood of the...

When people don’t have insurance, they show up in emergency rooms for routine medical problems.

We could be seeing more of that in the months ahead as the number of insured in the country drops.

The fifth season for enrollment in the Affordable Care Act launches Nov. 1, and the lack of federal support for getting people enrolled could result in a reversal in the steady drop in the number of uninsured across the country.

The U.S. Health and Human Services Department has cut grant funding for groups that assist consumers in getting insurance. Very little money has been allocated for getting the word out about the enrollment period.

The advertising budget for the program has been cut by 90 percent.

Opinion

But the biggest action to undermine the ACA came Thursday when President Donald Trump signed an executive order that will allow businesses — and maybe individuals — to buy a type of health insurance that avoids ACA protections and state regulations. This will have the effect of driving up costs for the seriously ill and force more insurers to abandon the program — all part of a purposeful effort to undercut the ACA so that the administration can claim it is failing.

The enrollment and advertising programs have been doing their jobs, helping raise awareness and encouraging enrollment. In 2016 the percentage of uninsured U.S. residents dropped into the single digits. It went from 14.5 percent in 2013 to 8.8 percent. Maintaining those numbers will be difficult in the current anti-Affordable Care Act climate.

There is an uncertain future for the cost-sharing reductions that help low-income Americans afford deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses. There are also questions about what the Treasury Department plans to do about the federal insurance requirement mandate.

The Trump administration’s refusal to allow some states to proceed with measures that would stabilize the Affordable Care Act market and lower insurance premiums in 2018 does not bode well for families struggling financially.

Sabotaging efforts to maintain current ACA enrollment levels with no viable alternate plan in place will redirect uninsured patients to seek out more costly solutions for their medical problems.

Those costly emergency room visits that could have been better handled in a clinic visit are not cheap. Costs that might have been minimal and better handled through medical insurance will become a burden on the taxpaying public.

Tax dollars underwrite the cost of those non-life-threatening emergency visits by those who cannot get a doctor’s appointment because they have no health care coverage.